The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
“If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”
But…the good Samaritan reversed the question:
“If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tag Archives: Grace
Would you…?
The truth that people have their own lives to live explains why they wouldn’t care more for others.
Freed by Grace
And so the Lord says,
“These people say they are mine.
They honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
And their worship of me
is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.
Isaiah 29:13
Legalistic people should stay in God’s church.
For although they don’t own the church, though they behave as if they do,
it’s a hospital for dying sinners not a museum for living saints.
Live!
Still, it’s what GOD had in mind all along, to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And GOD’s plan will deeply prosper through him.
Isaiah 53:10 The Message
No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you’ve done,
GOD bled his heart out for you because He loves you.
And He wants you to live.
Grace Moves!
God’s grace fuels acceptance that paves the way for moving on.
Once we begin to move on, we’ll be surprised to know how far we can go from the point where we thought it was the end.“Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”
So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” —2 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)
Mirrored Grace
“I rejected the church for a time because I found so little grace there.I returned because I found grace nowhere else.”
― Philip Yancey
Grace receivers ought to be grace givers.
Grace Wins, Hands Down
Even at the face of oppression and death,
Christ still made every effort to say,
“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
Grace Magnified
“God is none other than the Savior of our wretchedness.So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities…Those who have known God without knowing their wretchedness have not glorified him, but have glorified themselves.”
— Blaise Pascal
One would appreciate God’s grace most after one has accepted his sinfulness first.
Amazing Grace
“In the presence of this gracious gift of faith [Eph. 2:8-9], God justifies us “by his grace” (Rom. 3:24; Tit. 3:7) and forgives our trespasses “according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7) and saves us “through the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:11) and “makes all grace abound” to us for “every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8) and makes his grace sufficient for all our affliction (2 Cor. 12:9) and enables us “by the grace of God” to work harder than we imagined we could (1 Cor. 15:10) and grants “grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16) and gives us “eternal comfort and good hope through grace” (2 Thess. 2:16), so that in the end “the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:12).”
It was and is all grace — never ever let that slip off your heart and mind.
Quote taken from God is the Gospel by John Piper, p.36
Worth Pondering…
Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.
Isaiah 40:26
…What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
Hebrews 2:6; Psalm 8:4
All For You
Thank you, God for everything…
The big things and the small,
For “every good gift comes from God,”
The Giver of them all.And all too often we accept
Without any thanks or praise,
The gifts God sends as blessings
Each day in many ways.And so at this Thanksgiving time,
We offer up a prayer,
To thank You, God, for giving us
A lot more than our share.First, thank You for the little things
That often come our way,
The things we take for granted,
But don’t mention when we pray.The unexpected courtesy,
The thoughtful, kindly deed,
A hand reached out to help us
In the time of sudden need.Oh, make us more aware, dear God,
Of little daily graces
That come to us with “sweet surprise”
From never-dreamed-of places.
Then, thank You for the “miracles”
We are much too blind to see,
And give us new awareness
Of our many gifts from Thee.And help us to remember
That the key to life and living,
Is to make each prayer a prayer of thanks
And every day Thanksgiving.~ Helen Steiner Rice ~
“Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to your name goes all the glory
for your unfailing love and faithfulness.”—Psalm 115:1 (NLT)
Bloodstained Hands
Our hearts have doors through which God wants to pass into.
But still, we push Him away.
However, no matter how sharp the thorns and spikes we put on our door,
He will still knock.
“Love…always perseveres.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:7
Stop Punishing Yourself
Have you ever had a feeling when it seems like God is very distant to you? How many times do you punish yourself by striving hard just to get a clear conscience out of your iniquities that cut His heart so deeply? And for you to push away all the guilty feeling and at the same time, the feelings of hurt, pain, and fears, you try to extend all your efforts by becoming “good” and “holy” with all your might. You begin by trying to prove that you are now a changed man after you repented and perhaps, it’s as if you start to believe unconsciously, reality speaking, that all of your “righteous practices” could wipe away the madness that He has against you. But in the end, you still feel that all your efforts will never be enough.
Perhaps, one of the reasons why we react and rationalize just like that is because our love tends to be conditional. We pattern our relationship with the Lord with the kind of relationship we have with our fellow men.
Nevertheless, I think, this is the time to draw a line from here. We have to understand that God looks at us, differently; far more different compared to how humans look at us. He always extends unconditional love despite our flaws, stubbornness, and hypocrisy. We don’t have to prove anything; He knows us inside and out. All we have to do is to pause for a while and listen as He says, “Son, I think you should cease striving by now and start to understand that I am God. I love you despite your imperfections. I am not mad at you anymore.”
“If we finally realize that God is not mad at us anymore, that’s the only time we’ll go for love and growth.” —Henry Cloud
I Ain’t Good Enough
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Ephesians 2:8-10
I love and serve not because I want to be saved.
I love and serve because I am already saved.
Drenched in Grace
“One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.”
— John Bunyan
It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.
We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing!
No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
(Ephesians 2:1-10, MSG)
Salvation is by works…not ours, but HIS!
“…It’s God’s gift from start to finish!”
Salvation’s End
“…you are a chosen people… that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” — 1 Peter 2:9
You are chosen. Billions of people in the world, and you are chosen. Chosen to be blessed, chosen to be loved, chosen to be saved. Out of nothingness and insignificance, you were made important and relevant. You play the starring role in the greatest rags-to-riches movie ever told in the universe. But the story does not end there; your life story does not stop at salvation. No. You were chosen for one ultimate purpose – worship. Your salvation is not for yourself, but for God! You are given the greatest honor of being chosen with the specific purpose of worshiping Him! If worship is not the ultimate purpose of your salvation, then you are missing the best part of being saved! Worship is the place of abundant blessings, richest fellowships, and incomparable fulfillment! You were bought with the highest price for a reason. Praise Him – daily, honestly, passionately. That is true salvation’s end.
“We are saved to worship God. All that Christ has done for us in the past and all that He is doing now leads to this one end.”
— A.W. Tozer
